THREAD FOCUS:>What was the Indigo Crow even thinking?>Boaz "200% Ahab" Kryptman finds exciting new toxins on Savlar>Does the Orikan/Deceiver Pyramid scheme have an end goal, or is it just syndicated lying for the art of it?>Also, how goes Praetoria...? (we really need something on the world of tea and crumpets)>Chaos Orks at the heads of precarious Whaggs getting smacked down by Ghazghkull >The Bloodpact, and the little whiny Tzarina that made it (so sayeth Magnus)

>Still need to finish Dorn, Fulgrim, Lion, and Angron among the primarchs>Dornfag seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth>We're desperate for proper writeups of old stuff, and both from notes and archived threads >More Croneldar/Chaos Ork/CSM stuff?

The introduction of the Imperial Throne as a single interstellar currency probably started as the coinage of the Void Born that was used in Sol that then worked it's way out along with the Expeditionary Forces of the Great Crusade.

Originally it was Req. Almost certainly derived from Requisition tokens used by the Quarter Supreme of Luna used to allocate resources during the Age of Strife. 1 Req is just a Req, 10 Req was a DecReq, 10 DecReq (100 Req) was a CetuReq. Fraction and decimal Req only existed as hypothetical inside a bank account and had no real world counter part.

Thrones are Reqs in all but name, presumably Horus had something to do with this or at least someone in his employ.

Availability, acceptability and value of local currency varies greatly in the imperium even down to the scale of nation-states but every world in the Imperium, by law, accepts the Throne and accepts it at the value dictated by the Administrtum.

The Throne (coin) and it's worth is seen to an extent as the glue that holds interstellar trade together. Fucking with the coinage is officially treason and is one of the few things that will have the Arbiters kicking down your door.

It doesn't matter if you're the head of a vast trader dynasty, a sector governor or an ambitious idiot in a back room making counterfeits. If you fuck with the thrones you fuck with the Throne and the Throne will fuck back.

Eldar typically prefer to barter goods for goods and seldom accept local currencies. Some times they will use Throne Coin if they can't find an alternative. Big exception being Sreta Ulthran's branch of the Ulthran clan.

You misunderstand. The planetary government's punishment for crimes involving thrones are irrelevant. The value of a Throne is based on the credibility of the Imperial government and its word. Fuck around with the Imperium's coin and you attack the Imperium's word and credibility, and even a sector governor will get run down by Arbites if they try to manipulate Imperial currency. Commit all the crimes you want with your local coin, its monopoly money in the grand scheme of things, even if it wrecks that local currency that can be kept isolated from the greater Imperial economy.

Don't fuck with the Thrones though. The Astra Militarum is paid in Thrones, and Thrones buy their voidships and lasguns, as the Mechanicus is also paid in Thrones. The Administratum does its accounting in Thrones, the Imperial Courtiers and Rogue Traders count their fortunes and investments in Thrones. Inquisitors file their expenses in Thrones. Do not fuck with the Throne, do not fuck with the Thrones.

Would Orks be more like StormBoyz with the reintroduction of Brain Boyz? It can be seen as Ork society is changing to become slightly more regimented with Warbosses encouraging schools similar to StormBoyz.

>>54218434As much as they want to keep a closed economy other than trading for diplomatic relations, eventually, the Tau will have to adopt Thrones just to make their life easier when interacting with outside Tau worlds.

>>54218434I suppose they would just have a very widespread and legitimate Local currency, and their inclusion in the Throne economy would be hashed out in the paperwork of their inclusion in the Imperium under the esteemed status of Xenos Familiarus. One might even imagine it was a point of contention in past diplomatic eras when the Imperium made overtures to them. The currencies of Ultramar, Necromunda, Praetoria, and other survivor civilizations would probably be of similar worth, and possibly worth long term investment in as the fortunes of different parts of the galaxy shift.

In terms of survivors of the War in Heaven, the whole Necron Star Empire. In terms of other Old Ones, between the Silent King and Khorne's mass executions and Be'lakor protecting his monopoly on secrets, any that still exist would be very well hidden. hydra dominatus

>>54218440I've been imagining something like that coupled with mass mechanization, maybe even orks with common cybernetics.

So far the signature weapons of Brainboyz or even chaos empowered pseudo Brainboyz like the Tzeentchian Orks mentioned a while back have seemed to be attack moons and worlds, and various other massive feats of engineering. The Necrons say its rude for the Imperium to ask them not to send World Engines into segmentum Ultima because they were made in response to Ork war worlds, and the Imperium is impeding the destruction of the same with their bitching.

>>54220064Slavery as punishment exist but not the galaxy-wide trade system we see in vanilla. Arbites, Inquisitors, and Mechanics are the ones most likely to have slave camps. Two of those three would use it for prisoners while the Mechanics just doesn't give a shit about the social norm within Imperial society.

Space Marines in this AU seem to be, with the exception of things like the Sharks and the GKs, a branch of the Imperial Army.

Do they get paid?

Also can they retire? Lets say one gets too broken to war properly but not to the extent that it's dreadnaught time. Or maybe the mental elastic snaps and they get PTSD. Could they leave the war to less broken men and try to make new lives for themselves?

>>54229677Which ones do you have in mind? Perhaps if people named a chapter and we try and twist it to fit?

Crimson Fists is easy enough. You get the Crimson Fists and change nothing but the origin of their name. Now rather than their hands being red by the blood of their brothers slain in the HH their hands and blades are eternally red with the blood of the foes of the Imperium in general. Their actions in the war against the Orks remains unchanged as they were already pretty Noble Dark to start with.

>>54230074Warp Hunters are Fallen Night Lords from WoTB who enjoy being the baddies. They have purple ghost dog theme amongst them and really like exterminating the fuck out of worlds. Infamous for broadcasting their prisoners' suffering system-wide, it was them that also destroyed the Ratlings homeworld in the Gothic War. Acting as "Those Guys" in Chaos where they don't give a shit about the gods and are only working with Crone Eldar and other Fallen because it lets them survive against the Imperium.

>>54221638>>54225479>>54228709I think an Astartes retiring would be extremely, extremely rare. There's plenty of old folks today who find retirement strange or difficult because they're not used to having a routine after 40+ years of working. Now think of the same situation with a hyper-disciplined superhuman warrior who has been fighting for potentially centuries. It's pretty much all they know, even if they had a decent life before they were recruited in their late teens or early twenties. Dante and Logan from canon show that age is not generally an issue for Astartes, so I imagine it's a situation similar to "a Witcher never dies in his bed," where its more of a question of *when* an Astartes falls in battle rather than *if*.

Perhaps the Astartes actor was a rare case of one who had a combo of good looks, charisma, and acting potential combined with a combat-ending injury who volunteered for the gig. The augmetics only add to the gritty appeal and mystique, of course.

>>54241891The Navy and the Guard squabble endlessly over who is the preeminent wing of the Army. The Guard cites sheer numbers deployed, tales of planets defended and retaken, the fact that even forty thousand years in the future you need boots on the ground to control territory. The Navy cites cost and weight- a full million-man Guard battlegroup still costs less than a single Navy frigate- the fact that the Guard would be utterly useless without ships to take them where they need to go, and similar rolls of battle honors and gigadeaths prevented. They are more standardized than the Guard, due to the relatively lower number of shipyards vs. the number of Guard recruiting worlds and greater Mechanicus influence. But then, the All-Sector Crazy Person Convention can reasonably claim to be less varied than the Guard.

>>54241891It has a disproportionate number of Voidborn in it, also eldar. The Voidborn because the Navy was founded by Horus and his people and the eldar because they hang around for a long time causing career congestion.

It's also the reason why everyone does everything possible to discourage eldar from pursuing high office.

>>54245028That just happens to contain a shit load of ships geared up to Navy Elite standards and the excessive number of bodyguards just happens to consist of lots of ex-Guard veterans.

In the same way that the Navigators don't have personal armies. They just have shit loads of bodyguards and heavily armed butlers.

Also a question.

Do the Tau still adhere to a vegetarian diet in this AU. I'm thinking of doing a timeline/summary of Shas'O Kais' life from 887 - 999M41 and it will be a point of mention when he first meets the Kroot during the first deployment of his first tour. The Doomguy incident being his second tour.

>>54240227There is also the possibility that one or more of the Talismans of Vaul were at the heart of a Space Hulk.

Occasionally the Imperium, or others, manage to find a chunk of Old One weirdness that other ship parts have accumulated around. The corroded and half fossilized wreck with the Shadowlight inside it being one such example.

Shadowlight being one of the things in the Ganymede Vaults with strict instructions that nobody touch it.

This did not stop Inquisitor Jaq Draco form licking it on a dare. The usual sanity destroying effects had not effect on him due to already being so far round the bend that the bend looks like something drawn by M. C. Escher.

More worrying maybe are the gene-stealers in some of the ancient Hulks and the implications.

>>54247825It could be one of the things that has divided the traditionalists and reformists down the ages. Not a great point of distinction in and of itself but an indication of what side they lean towards.

The traditionalists are strictly vegetarian because Aun'O Da was a vegetarian.

The reformists are not because Aun'O Da didn't actually put his views on vegetarianism into any of his writings.

>>54252065One thing is playing unauthorized mind games with the one known daemon prince of Malal, Apep. Apep also told us we should charge Jaq for the same transgressions with an indefinite number of unknown princes of Malal. This was considered frivolous at best.

>>54253806Probably all of those. Apep only stays on Ganymede because its been told emphatically to leave and never return, and instructions have been equally clear to vacate its holding cell so a new prisoner can be assigned to it. Thus Apep remains in prison, guarding its cell so that none can take it.

>>54220374>>54220465>>54231459Slavery was actually mentioned in an earlier thread. Indentured servitude, penal slavery and other “lighter” kinds of slavery are allowed in the Imperium. It was brought up as one of the ways the Imperium differs morally from 21st century Earth in a way we would find anachronistic, but they find normal. Part of this is because Oscar is more concerned with the wellbeing of people than their emancipatory status, and part of this is that Oscar doesn’t like to intervene in a world’s affairs unless they are really doing something that requires bringing the hammer down.

I imagine Angron is not happy about this. To him it sounds like a slave is a slave is a slave, and it doesn’’t matter what fancy words you dress it up in to make it sound like it’s okay to you. Link related.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHu793gEqSE

>>54221638They essentially get free housing, healthcare, and food for the rest of their lives in exchange for service it sounds like. Mortyboi was mentioned as having a salary but that could have been a Unification Era-thing when the Imperium was not the galactic power it was today.

Astartes rarely "retire", but occasionally you get one that can't be on the front lines anymore. They tend to get desk jobs for the military away from the action because it's at least not totally alien to them. Also while they tend to overestimate how squishy an unaugmented human is, they still have centuries of experience comparable to only the most heavily rejuvenated members of the Guard.

It's rare though. Usually it's either death or dreadnaught.

>>54225479>>54237143I've actually thought about this one. Not the original author, but my idea was the guy got a lungful of tyranid spores, which he was able to live through at the cost of his multi-lung and oolitic kidney, among other organs. Got forcibly benched, and when told his options were paper pushing or doing this decided to do what he felt had the greater benefit for the Imperium.

Despite having good relations with the cast and crew, things aren't all nice for him. He'd rather be out on the field shooting things, and feels guilty about it. The cranky, world-weary attitude of his character isn't all talk. He calls it method acting.

>>54246766>>54247825>>54249060Tau are naturally *mostly* herbivores. They evolved from an analogue of ungulates on their world. They eat some protein, in order to fuel their enlarged brain, but in their pre-space flight days the Tau diet was mostly plant matter along with any small animal that was too dumb to get out of the way. Like an Earth duiker or something.

Today it still tends to be mostly plant products (especially protein-heavy grains), but they supplement it with fish or shrimp.

I like the idea of Da being a vegan, but that could have been because he lived in the primarily agrarian Earth empires where there was nothing but grain. If he was a Fire nomad things would have been very different.

>>54256291Problems would have arisen the moment Angron ends up in a campaign to take a nation that uses slavery and it becomes apparent that the Warlord isn't the Great Emancipator that Angron mistook him for.

Oscar declared all the Nordic Afrik slaves free on the basis that it couldn't make the nation any more dysfunctional and that style of slavery was abhorrent to the marrow. Then he handed the ruined nation over to Guilliman to fix and incorporate into Europia. Europia itself had an institution of slavery but so regulated and amended it wasn't comparable. It was just the logical conclusion of a feudal society where everyone is short on cash.

Also Europia was part of the Imperium so Angron would have assumed Oscar was going to come back at some later date and fix it then.

Shit would have gotten angry when they take territory from the middle eastern nation whose name escapes me but Ahriman was from there. It was Chaos corrupted so it had to be subjugated but the slave system was, on paper at least, basically the same as Europia and the problems arose from lack of oversight and accountability.

Oscar opts to fix the system rather to tear it all down. Angron flips his shit and raises his fists in anger against the Warlord.

Thankfully there's not a lot that a Thunder Warrior can do against a Man of Gold so the Warlord was forgiving. Also Angron was at the shit end of his medication cycle and was fine again (relatively speaking) once he got some more calming pills. The Red Angel had sacrificed much for the Imperium and was a walking example of why the Super Soldier project needed considerable more work done.

Fourth Black Crusade >Prospero was almost destroyed by Chaos until Ahriman preserved the planet by teleporting it to a pocket dimension.Is this accurate because that is the only thing on the wiki about the 4th BC.

>>54257933Ahriman was from Achaemenidia. Achaemenidia was in an alliance against Ursh with Ducht Jemanic, Bania, Terrawatt, and Uralia. So it would have been very anti-Ursh, and likely anti-Chaos. They must have been on good terms with Macedonia because the map says they became part of the Tharkian Empire after Unification.

Achaemenidia's biggest problem was it was at the crossroads between Europe, Africa, and Asia, so you kept having troops moving through Achaemenidia going to somewhere else. Ahriman probably was a child when the Warlord's forces marched through there repeatedly to get to the Afrique League and bypass the worst terrain to get to Ursh.

>>54217838Fucking with thrones would be an especially heinous offense, because the more you think about it, the more that a reputation-based currency (like banknotes and paper money) is the only way to go in a galactic economy.

Human cultures in the past have mostly used gold and silver for their currency because they were one of the few elements that were rare enough to buffer inflation and counterfeiting but yet not rare enough that minting a currency was impractical. Most other elements either did not fulfill these criteria or were radioactive.

But in space that is meaningless. There is enough gold and precious metals in asteroids to make gold coins effectively worthless. Gold becomes more valuable for its conducting ability than its power to represent a unit of demand. What becomes more valuable is whatever a system doesn’t have, whether that’s food or metals that aren’t common in the system for whatever reason. So we’re back to the barter system.

Unless you have a strong central government able to impose its will and say “we say this token is worth so much and we will back this with our financial reputation”. If the central government is stable and not liable to collapse, this makes the currency a stable medium of exchange. Counterfeiting thrones is now a direct act of undermining the government’s reputation.

Thrones are still probably metal in some way because gold is harder to counterfeit than paper. And since civilization as a whole is rolling in gold and other precious metals (particularly ones that are not in high demand like adamantium), why not put that metal to use?

>>54261265Yep. Basically huge Crone fleet made it to Prospero in the hopes of pillaging the planet. Ahriman and some other sorcerers pulled a slapped-together ritual designed to seal Prospero in a pocket dimension so no one could get the planet, and fucked up. Preserving is a bit of a loose term here (go ask the Legion of the Damned), but Chaos didn't get their grimy hands on anything of note.

It wasn't the only thing that happened but since Prospero was the biggest training grounds for psykers and astropaths outside of Old Earth as well as the cutting edge of psychic research in the Imperium Chaos felt like it could call this one a win.

>>54229677I was actually going to post this last thread since it seemed like there was no new writing coming in. But since we’re talking about ideas for modern Space Marine chapters…

The Minotaurs are something of a boogeyman among Space Marines. A group that make even battle-hardened Astartes quiver and speak of in hushed tones. The reason for this fear and paranoia are rather simple: The Minotaurs are Space Marines that hunt Space Marines.

The first recorded instance of a Space Marine considering tactics against other Space Marines was the Ultramarine Aeonid Thiel. During the Great Crusade, Thiel was dragged before Guilliman by his fellow Ultramarines for teaching the marines under his command tactics for fighting other Space Marines, which they saw as a sign of treachery. Guilliman asked whether this was true, and upon being told it was, asked Thiel to explain himself. After hearing Thiel’s explanation, Guilliman asked the two Ultramarines who had brought Thiel to him to leave the room, and then congratulated Thiel for his ingenuity. He was willing to entertain possibilities no one else could or wanted to consider, and just because people. The Space Marines were created by the Imperium to be their finest warriors in the reconquest of the stars, and who is to say another, more hostile human empire could not have had a similar idea. Thiel would be rewarded for his ingenuity, though for obvious reasons not at that very moment. Thiel would finally be validated and his actions recognized during the War of the Beast, where the actions of Luther and his Fallen showed the idea that a Space Marine could turn traitor to be a frightening reality.

>>54262243 (cont.)The Minotaurs were originally founded by a War Hound named Leon Kravidos shortly after the Age of Apostasy as a chapter dedicated to fighting against the Fallen. Kravidos knew that in order to fight other Space Marines his men would have to be at the very peak of their potential. Therefore, he created a downright grueling training regimen by Space Marine standards, designed to make his men prepared for anything. Despite his job, Kravidos was actually well respected among Astartes, and was deeply mourned when he died in battle. For thousands of years after that, the Minotaurs were rather unnotable among Space Marine chapters. Their job of hunting down Fallen space marines was well known, but they were seen as people just doing their job as opposed to someone to be feared. That is, until the latest Chapter Master of the Minotaurs, Asterion Moloc, took control of the chapter in 200.M41, after the death of his predecessor in the Badab War.

In contrast to many in the Imperium who spend much of their time in pursuit of a particular foe, such as Inquisitor Boaz Kryptman and the tyranids, Asterion Moloc does not feel a festering hatred for his enemy. Instead, he seems to take the attitude of a big game hunter hunting the most dangerous game. He seems to take a perverse joy in hounding his targets to the ends of their endurance, before delivering the final blow. He spends hours reviewing all known records and tactics of his quarry, so that he know every possible move his prey can make before they do. He does this even for chapters that have not been assigned his target yet.

>>54262262 (cont.)For obvious reasons, most space marines are uncomfortable with the Minotaurs, considering them, in the words of one Astartes scout who wished to remain anonymous, to be “team-killing frag-heads”. Indeed, the Minotaurs in recent years have been known to be a bit too eager in their desire to fight Space Marines, sometimes flying off the handle at an innocent chapter at the urging of some particularly radical or puritan Inquisitor. About the only people who feel comfortable around the Minotaurs are the Sisters of Battle, who often cooperate with the Minotaurs in operations involving the Fallen.

>>54262262This was my idea for a high concept of the Minotaurs while still sticking with the familiar beats of canon, specifically Space Marines who disturbingly excel at killing other Space Marines.

In the Nobledark Imperium, it seems less likely that the High Lords would need their own personal attack dogs, since they aren't as overt, paranoid backstabbers as in canon and they already have so many beatsticks they can pull out (the Sisters come to mind). But Fallen? It makes sense that at least one chapter would be specialized to deal with them.

In the past, it was mentioned that to fight Space Marines under unfavorable odds the Sisters would have to call in Astartes help of their own? Well, in those cases, the Minotaurs are the Space Marines the Sisters call in.

The idea is that instead of being the High Lords attack dog, Moloc creeps everyone out because he acts like a big game hunter hunting the most dangerous game. He gives the impression of being intelligent while giving you the impression that he's figuring out how your head would look over a fireplace.

>>54256291>>54257933Hmm, this is an interesting point I hadn't considered for the Angron fluff. I think of chew on this and throw our some ideas in the thread to see what sticks. Especially since I was thinking of having Oscar guilt trip him by mentioning the enslaved people across the galaxy to get him to join the Great Crusade, since if it was up to Angron he would have called it quits to live with his family.

>>54263226He still very much could. There is slavery, well regulated and with the dignity of manning unreasonably diminished, that Oscar tolerates. Then there is enslavement to Chaos and to xenos who treat humans as food you can stick your dick in.

That level of barbarity is very much like the Nord Afrik and they will be dealt with in the same manner. And for all that Angron may dislike Oscar's reasoning sometimes they do agree more than they disagree.

>>54261635Possibly they are a breed of primeval beastmen adopted by chaos and mutated further away from baseline humanity.

It was put forth previous thread that the Horned Rat is a deamon joint project of Nurgle and Tzneetch from back in the old days when it was just them and Malal..

As his patrons have twisted from their purpose and become monstrous so has he but he was imprisoned in/as the Balemoon of the Impossible Planet of the Tyrant "Star". He is a primeval deamon from the olden days when the rules of The Game were different, there will never be another like him created. Thankfully.

The planet itself is still there and there have been expeditions to it, it's just everything of note that was on the planet has gone. All the cities, the houses, the fields, the monuments, those strange crystals, the trees, the grass, the fish and the people. It's just a lifeless rock now. When the first Imperial people came to investigate there wasn't even any microbes on the planet, just dust and rock and water.

Actually not quite, Eisenhorn is closer to insanely stupid than stupidly insane. The guy I was thinking of was an Inquisitor in a really bad unfinished story I found on Fanfiction.net a couple years ago when I was really desperate for reading material.

>>54272428>Also can humans become his adherents or is it a strictly eldar only club?Harlequin are still Eldar only, because they're an immortal, semi-sanctified performance troupe and humans don't live long enough to memorize all their scenes and lines.

However, the Dark Carnival encourages all attendees to dress as clowns, make colossal fools of themselves, take all the drugs, and honk when they orgasm. The human attendants of the Dark Carnival are generally pretty well suited to supporting Harlequin tactics, and the harder members like Savlar Chem-Dogs and vacationing Navigators might be able to keep pace with them, but the harlequin are still a distinctly Eldar subculture.

Tau Fire Caste born to distinctly average parents. Mother and father worked in the T'au PDF equivalent. Name their son Kais, probably the most common name on T'au. Young Kais spends his childhood and early adolescence in the Fire Cast boarding school in the mountain town of Ash’nat Ruush being raised communally as is tradition with Tau.

896M41

Kais is lives up to his unimaginative name and passes with sufficiently above average grades to be placed in the Interstellar Army of the Tau rather than it’s local defence force. Although Kais passed with good grades on the notoriously traditionalist homeworld he was definitely in the pro-Imperium reformist camp, a thing that annoyed his tutors somewhat.

That and his lack of interest in the more philosophical aspects of the Greater Good. Which is not to say that he lacked faith in the cause but that he lacked patience with things without immediate practical application. He saw that his job was to defend the realm, not quote scripture.

897M41

Shas’Saal Kais is sent to “cut his teeth”, to use an Old Earth phrase, in the ongoing war for the hiveworld Agrellan / Mu'gulath Bay against the predations of the Ak'Haireth Resurgence. The world, although officially part of the Imperium proper, had substantial Tau investment and presence and was seen as a vital gateway between the two realms and a model of cooperation. The campaign to remove the fungal infection that was the Ak'Haireth was ultimately successful though costly. Shas’Saal Kais becomes Shas'la T'au Kais.

The greater deamon Tarkh'ax assaults the up until then nowhere world of Dolumar IV in a successful attempt to kidnap the Ethereal Aun'el Ko'vash. Reasons for doing so were later found to be to try and find a way of possessing Tau of the leadership caste for the most obvious reasons. If such a thing is possible is still undetermined as Ko’vash managed to commit suicide sometime into the proceedings but sadly before a substantial joint Tau – Imperial force made planet fall. By the time the main forces had arrived Tarkh'ax was already eroding reality on the planet from the Governors Palace and Dolumar IV was becoming a deamon world. It was a frantic and desperate mad dash to the Palace to stop the deamon prince at any cost.

Part of this force was Shas'la T'au Kais. Nobody is sure what happened to Kais on Dolumar IV but every body knows what he did. The Imperial Army, the other Tau, even the Space Marines soon found that they couldn’t keep up with Kais. His helm-cam recorded his progress, his body count that would be the envy of a Warhound veteran, the sheer magnitude of the things he cut down from deranged thralls to Fallen Marines to Chaos Spawn and ultimately Tarkh'ax himself almost single-handedly.

Knowing that the Ethereal Council would try to cover up the events as best it could Kais removed and hid the storage crystal from his helmet. In the time it took the remnants of the Tau cadre to return to T’au Kais’ mental state deteriorated due to the things he had seen. He uploaded the contents of his helm-cam to the planetary info-net. When the law enforcement found him he was sitting near catatonic in the data-hub.

Kais spent the next three years unresponsive in the Por’Vre Jeph’dar sanctuary for damaged souls.

Video surveillance of the Por’Vre Jeph’dar Sanctuary shows an eldar later identified as a known Handmaiden entering the facility and making her way to Kais’ cell. No eyewitnesses confirm this despite the figure having walked past several members of staff.

The next day Inquisitor ██████████████████████████ of the Ordo Malleus arrives at the Sanctuary and commandeers the miraculously recovered Kais.

The large part of Kais’ life spent in the service of the Inquisition is known to only a few with any certainty as his records are highly classified. Higher than most Inquisitorial files. What is known is that the Kroot have first claim on the old Tau’s body should he die uncorrupted, although what he did to earn this honour and what they did to deserve such meat is unknown. It is known that he had considerable experience commanding both Space Marines and human Guardsmen prior to the events on Kronus, though the circumstances are unknown.

989M41

Kais returns to the Tau Empire a very different creature. His skin grey and leathery with age in the places it wasn’t scar tissue, he spoke numerous languages to some basic degree and walked with the confident stride of an experienced commander.

Kais is bumped up the command chain to Shas’O Kais, though the Ethereals refuse to return the “T’au” to his name.

Shas’O Kais heads the Tau contribution to the re-conquest of the planet Kronus alongside Colonel-Farseer Taldeer and her Cadians.

Kais and Gabriel Angelos, who was heading and independent detachment of Blood Ravens to Kronus for undisclosed reasons, form an odd friendship possibly based on their mutual experiences with the Inquisition and the eternal war against Chaos to say nothing of each others towering reputations.

The Tau contribution contained many Kroot who held Kais in some degree of awe or possibly fear and named him Laar’Nak Shak; The Walking Death. The Kroot were not actually officially part of the Tau army originally but Kais called in a favour and hinted that they might get settlement rights if they leant a hand. It was suspected the Kroot shaper just wanted Kais for his body.

M992

With the successful conclusion of the Kronus campaign Shas’O Kais returns to T’au and accepts a training job at the Ash’nat Ruush Boarding School where it is presumed he will sped his final years trying to impart his wisdom to the next generation of Fire Warriors.

>>54274571I going to be a bit spergy about power levels for a moment and say that it needs a better explanation for how he accomplishes the events of Fire Warrior, otherwise it's kind of nonsensical. Like it's established that Tau are physically inferior to humans, and most Space Marines couldn't solo a Lord of Change, so there would need to be some compelling reason for Kais to be able to solo a minor daemonic incursion. Like yeah, I get it, it would be kind of snowflakey if he was some special Tau supersoldier, but it was *also* be snowflakey if he's just a normal Tau and does all that without proper explanation.

>>54279662Kais going Full Doomguy is not only in the Vanilla fluff but also an important defining moment of Nobledark Kais that people in universe can hardly believe. They wouldn't find it hard to believe if it was easily explainable.

>>54280396It isn't in vanilla though, Fire Warrior is non-canon. Even if we go by that, the novelization implies Kais had help/buffs from Khorne so he could foil the Lord of Change's plan, so even in vanilla it isn't like Kais is normal.

My problem is that it clashes with the logic of the universe to an extent that it becomes narratively unsound. Sure, outliers exist: Harken is an outlier for a Catachan, Draigo is an outlier for a Grey Knight, they do cool shit their fellows can't. But Kais' feat of soloing Chaos marines, daemons, and a Lord of Change puts him well above most Mk III S marines in this AU and arguably in the neighborhood of vanilla Primarchs, which is absurd, so not providing some justification makes it seem like an ass pull.

>>54274571Nice. My only big criticism beyond if reading in a "choppy" manner is that it is too short and contaisn too little. Could serve as the bare bones for someone to flesh out at a later date if it goes on the 1d4chan.

Also I can't say one way or the other whether Kais and CM Angelos would become friends as we haven't said what sort of man the Nobledarkness has made the CM.

>>54280653>>54279662It's Tau Doomguy. If it was sensible it wouldn't be Doomguy. Also some threads ago someone pointed out that, aided by the low reality threshold of Dolumar IV at that time, he could have been acting like a lightning rod for the collective Tau faith in the Greater Good and getting mad buffs from it. Essentially for a brief time he was Tau Ephrael Stern.

>>54279662We did have an explanation for how he soloed a Lord of Change. He duct-taped his malfunctioning pulse rifle to a lot of detpacks and ran the other way. The Lord of Change may have even been partway in through the summoning ritual and didn't have time to pull back into the Warp.

A better way of saying things might be Fire Warrior is Kais' story after decades of propaganda. He still RIPPED AND TEARED like a pro, but its more heroic to imagine him doing it on foot with his sidearm Die Hard style as opposed to fighting smart with everything he can get his hands on. Likewise, it's much more dramatic for Kais to fight a Lord of Change one on one and somehow not get torn to pieces in 30 seconds as opposed to the reality of him just chucking a bomb into its face.

>>54285195Nobody has talked about her but man she sounds like appropriate in this AU considering the buffs the Imperials have. From what it looks like, she stared into the Warp and the Warp looked back. After that, her insane abilities might be her being able to harness WAAGH! energy and the more people believe in her strength, the stronger she becomes.

Sorry, no clue-- I might have found it by searching either "inquisition" or "inquisitor" or filtering by Character-Inquisition. But if you find a fic where the crazy inquisitor has a mute surrogate daughter he named Twerp, that's the one.

>>54287957Not high-level psyker I'm assuming, just for the fact that order also work with a lot of classified information and they don't want a walking time-bomb near them. Even worst is the psyker could be (unintentionally) leaking or sabotaging things, Orders Militant wouldn't have a problem taking in powerful psyker Sisters like Librarians but not Securitas.

>>54295743The last source of tea left in the galaxy. Anyone that lives on Preatoria must have their upper lips tested for stiffness. Anyone who fails this test is exiled to Walesetoria, an incomprehensible world without vowels.

>>54296410I just shatpost something out to bump the thread man, I don't know if it needs to be redeemed. I'll try to think of something britishish about Praetoria. Maybe add Welsh and Cornish moons. No big promises though, because university is frazzling me.

>>54252065He once tried to play the WoTB Docudrama Drinking Game with Legienstrasse. It's like the Lord of the Rings drinking game and the Stephen King drinking game combined.

Although Legienstrasse, even criminally intoxicated Legienstrasse, did not attempt to escape Jaq Draco was found stumbeling out of a web-way aperture on the Cthonian Ring wearing a traffic cone as a wizard hat and holding a transcript of part of the Necrotarch.

Since then it has been deemed illegal for Draco to drink alcohol on Vault property. A law he has broken often and hard.

I've got some ideas for wrapping up Fulgrim's participation in the Great Crusade and his crash in the Tzeentchian Ork's Iron Cage scenario. Going to go over later unification and relationships with notable other primarchs, some of the exploits of the Terra's Children like the destruction of Laer, and where Fulgrim was when Old Earth was overrun. Then how Fulgrim got dragged into the Iron Cage in the great hunt, got his shit beat, had to get Guilliman to bail him out, and then went into retirement milling around Sol working on rejuveants and other esoteric cybernetic improvements.

>>54314237it need that deeply. Isha visited once and said they'd likely die out in a handful of generations unsupervised, by dueling and ill-fated romance as much as inbreeding. Then Preatoria would default to a parliament that hasn't moved in millennia, or even worse, the Administratum planetary governance service.

>>54314512That could have been scare tactics as much as anything. Although a corrupt parliament of decadent spire lords and mega-corp representatives would have stagnated and fucked the ever loving shit out of the society in the long run a direct rule by the Administratum is not the horror story of Vanilla.

The problem for the aristocrats in the Administratum rule is that they loose most autonomy and authority as direct rule of Administratum is direct rule of Old Earth and the Dark Clerks and Grim Statisticians do not suffer fools gladly or often at all. Their head office is also right next door to the Assassin's main inquiries desk, rumor has it that there is a connecting door. No, direct rule of the Administratum would horrify them for entirely selfish reasons.

Better to fix the system in-house than giving outside authority an excuse to come in.

To that end when a humble, and importantly non-militant, order of the Adepta Securitas come calling with a solution to keep everything stable with no outsiders but themselves entering the system it was seized.

The Order of the Old Tree (known in mockery as The Order of the Bedwarmers to the aristocrats, at least at first) were predominantly composed of young (or at least young looking) women who offered their services to provide heirs to the noble houses in exchange for being considered second wives or concubines or whatever title the lords felt was most appropriate. And that was how they got into high society and it was only then that the aristocracy realized that they had been compromised.

By then it was too late. They couldn't expel the interlopers, those that actually wanted to, as their order were very popular among the unwashed masses for providing basic education and medical care for free or near as free. Their removal would cause uproar, upheaval and possibly even a popular revolt and revolution to have the Sister of the Old Tree reinstated as the new aristocracy.

>>54315314It was their hands that rocked the cradles of the next generation of little lordlings and royalty. It was they that taught them of duty above personal gain, honour above pleasure, justice and law above the selfish advantage of high station and loyalty to the Imperium above all.

The older generations of the aristocracy that could see this happening were quite powerless to stop it once the snowballing started. An attack on the Sisters was an attack on the Imperium. An attack on the Imperium they knew would be suicide.

The Sisterhood itself has never exerted much direct power or even had any real hard authority. Theirs is the whispers in the ear of the king and the gentle guiding hand. But it is a coordinated whisper in the ear of every authority figure and it is a gentle hand at every level of society. Their order has no official standing but rather than this making it poor it just makes it hard to account for as everything is a discrete and anonymous donation with seemingly every noble house as a patron, all eager to show their loyalty, all eager to please.

As of 999M41 Preatoria is firmly under their gentle ministrations. Every leader of the noble houses has one of the Sisters as either a mother or a lover or one of each.

On the positive side the Sisters also brought with them a lot of offworld contacts that have opened up all manner of new trading opportunities. For all that Preatoria seems all but ensnared by outside influence it has never actually been more prosperous.

>>54315442This is an interesting reminder of how this version of the Imperium has an odd permutation worshiping the state. They're all overtly not worshiping the Emperor and not necessarily worshiping Isha, but the Imperium overall has an interest in and massive capacity to instill faith in its laws, principles, and interests, including what amounts to internal policing. Were it too much more successful or pervasive it would border on eerie and totalitarian, but Oscar is so far off from any given world, and has such barriers between his accidentally accumulated cult of personality and the cult of the Lex Imperialis. Instead he's made himself a power that dwells in men's minds, the echo of the teacher's voice and the impulse towards uprightness and improvement. He is a god that exists through his own far extended regime of cultural programing and scholarly lore, his power as influential on the minds of the galaxy as a Chaos God's but locked up and kept metaphysically manageable in the conceptual substrate of Law and Justice. He might not even quite realize it, but the Emperor, through events brought on by his nature, has constructed a legal system that for most citizens lingers in the heavens dispensing just wroth or touches them through ancient orders, and the laws and precedents of which they might encounter like scripture, even as he protests any actual religion. He is a law god, and as such he runs a domain ruled by law, not god(s).

Khorne has his Skull Throne, Slaanesh has its Boudoir, Nurgle the Garden, Tzeentch its tower. The Emperor has a throne he never uses, and presumably somewhere there is a writing desk he never stops using until it wears out entirely. He likely goes through these desks like socks.

>>54315696All the major faiths claim and not without proof the Imperium as their Holy Empire, the creation and home of their faithful, blessed by their god/s. The Imperium rumbles on not harmed by each of their mutually exclusive claims, if anything benefiting from their love and increased stake in it's survival.

Every major faith in some way claims Oscar as their own, inspired or sent or given authority by their god/s. Oscar does not encourage this but so long as it's not actual worship he tolerates it. Distasteful as he finds it he can not deny that it does give people hope and more inclined to listen to him when he needs them to act sensible. But it is not what he wanted, he wants to be forgotten and disappear into the background.

To many in the Imperium, even those who have met him, Oscar is sort of like Jonah in that he is their chosen by god but reluctantly. He does the will of their god protesting every step of the way that he is not.

Although he will admit that she is an incredibly powerful and timeless being he has even denies the divinity of his wife, a fact that the eldar find hilarious.

On the whole the situation of faith, state and Emperor is not one that the Emperor is happy with but it is one made by the people that does no harm and is not so insufferable that he is willing to do anything about it beyond occasionally use it to prod people in a direction in times of need.

As for desks he has one. Throne might be too big and cumbersome to haul around but the desk isn't.

>>54315696With cults like the Lex Imperialis, the idea of a more efficient empire being ran by meritocratic clerks under aristocrats makes it sound like Imperial China. The society for much of Oscar's Imperium follows Legalism as either a philosophy or religion to some degree. Not even the Eldar can stay pure from this school of though as cooperation with humans, forces them to accept some form of utilitarianism. Where there is a lack of supernatural powers helping the Imperium, it more than makes up for it with xenos cooperation, top-down social engineering, and military professionalism. Compared that to vanilla's xenos extermination, bottom-up religious control, and military rivalries to see why the enemies of the Imperium needs a buff. >>54286797I for one like this HERO OF THE IMPERIUM.

>>54318644The Emperor's approval is not strictly needed in this regard.

To demand something on religious grounds would not sit well with him.

He has allowed himself to be thought of as saint, paragon, bodhisattva and various other equivalent titles because it is not worship. It is leading through example, as his father Malcador taught him, and if people want to copy him then good for them. Although it does put the pressure on to be worth copying. Ultimately the reverence is a choice of his citizens and he is not going to interfere with those rights, to do so would be way too authoritarian.

Unless it spills over into out right worship. Then it's one step too far.

Same with his laws. Live by the Lex Imperialis and live in a society that benefits b everyone living by the Lex Imperialis. Abide by the Pax Imperialis and live in peace. Abuse this trust and be met with the other end of the long arm of The Law.

>>54321178Thats the point of The Mother Goddess. Good hearted practitioners and good results, but the means and method is right on the line between sweet and horrific. Just focus on the =][= nanny wears on her breast as she gives you that spanking for being a naughty child, and not the strange feeling in your pants or the back of your mind. Sister superior of the Old Tree is proud to sport a full, matronly figure, and Sir Praetorian Chapter Master and Sir Imperial General of Praetoria have been made to call her 'mommy'. It is the tradition of the Imperium, and the way of things.

>>54328751Yes, after they first struck from the Salt Spire Temples the Warmaster reformed them into the Ordo Assinitorum, and killed a lot of them, and after the beheading the Steward reformed them into the Ordo Securitas, and killed a lot of them.

Karamazov drew a number of monodominant leaning assassins into his badly failed coup alongside his death cultists, so the Ordo Securitas is eager to bring the hammer down on him to reaffirm their loyalty. They need to get the Eversors into position for Oscar's good graces before the Space Sharks Isha sicced on him tear Karamazov to bits. Really its a moot point, Karamazov is at the center of a massive interservice rivalry to bring back his head, and is learning why a black crusade has never threatened the Traveling Court, let alone a mere conspiracy of Inquisitors.

>>54329215Fuck, I forgot how much the assassins got shat on by the Imperium. How would Art Deco assassins look like anyway? I was thinking more along the line of fascist Italians or occult Nazis since they used to be religious.

>>54333658The Ordo Securitas probably does have that very stylized military/dress uniform vibes. Lots of skulls in their aesthetic might be replaced with high eyed, fine faced visages, but the Assassins might actually bear skull insignia like vanilla, as it still fits with them. You probably get a good number of eerie human faced silver helms and tailored black fatigues on Vindicare, Eversors, and Culexus, and Vanus, Venenum, and Cadilus in inquisitorial dress, maybe with more skulls or less trim, always in dark colors. They probably don't wear those dark green military sashes.

>>54333658I kind of imagined assassin grandmasters when off the job looking more like the classical hashashin. Desert garb, turbans, veils, all that sort of stuff. The Assassins were culturally distinct from the rest of the imperium from their founding, up until Emperor Vandire, and I think their look would reflect that.

>>54335462>>54336179They probably have different outfits depending on whether they are "on the job" or "want to put the fear of God in you and everyone around you right before you die".

>>54329215I think it was said there were few, if any, Assassins involved in the coup. It was pointed out that the Emperor would bring the banhammer down if the Assassins tried anything post AoA, which is why death cultists were suggested instead. Fyodor probably knew the Assassins were formed from a death cult on Old Earth, and probably decided "I'll make my own" by manipulating his own planet of death cultists with some help from the few Assassins he could get to defect to make his own personal knockoff Assassin order.

>>54336784>the few Assassins he could get to defectjust that small group is enough to make the Grandmasters fear the banhammer, or at least want to reaffirm their fealty. Oscar isn't worried, the only one hurt by this is Karamazov.

>>54281342>>54284419See, this actually works as an explanation instead of being entirely arbitrary. If Kais is an elite soldier and somehow subconsciously taps the Greater Good for power, then it makes some sense for him to be able to take on daemons and Fallen with a bit of guile and cunning. The Lord of Change he beats since it's not yet fully materialized, and the events as portrayed in the Fire Warrior game are exaggerated for propaganda/entertainment purposes as mentioned here >>54284419 , with the real records of the event locked up in an Inquisition vault. Afterwards, he can continue on being Doomguy because he gets promoted and gets a badass mech suit.

As a side note, if it turns out he did indeed tap the Greater Good, then Kais might be the Tau species' first baby step towards developing psykers.

True servo-skulls of old are rare outside the Mechanicus and even then they are only common on distant forges, their techniques barely moved out of Old Night by the demands and Edicts of Mars. In the greater Imperium the holy provision allowing the manufacture of conditioned intelligences so long as they are founded upon the natural 'stone old' mind is seen as too valuable an avenue for refinement and advancement. Pushed by upstarts in the Ordo Cybernetica, the competition of the survivor civilization Hubworld workshops, the sovereign survivor power of Stillness, aristocratic engineereries across the Galaxy, and rumored workshops of the Imperial court hidden away on Cthonia, even the Martian Mechanicus has taken to greater investment in the flexibility, autonomy, and mental capacity in servo-skulls, to the point of the full resanctification of the designation Servo-Brain. Though no Servo-Brain is much more lively than a blank, they remain wholly sapient, and bear some shadow of their former character. Servo-Brains are enhanced with numerous advanced cogitators and memory stacks, vast archives, and sets of powerful narrow-scope pattern recognition cores selected for their work. They are immortal savants with minds and senses desigened for their work. The Servo-Brain has gone from increasingly advanced clerical drone, popular only among the Mechanicus, who had subpar brains to spare for the project to a contingency solution for bodily destruction in the lab, to the honorable and enhancing recourse of the sickly and dying among the learned and mighty.

On the left is an advanced Servo-Brain, of the Demimagos pattern, a common site on Olympus Mons and the explorator vessels alike.

On the right is an Inquisitorial Servo-Brain, based off a Galactic court pattern from the Cthonian workshop, for the preservation and improvement of various mortal assets.

>>54347475they become obsessed with the work their brains are set up for and a weak personality only really remains as a veneer over an automaton, a strong one can persist forever, somewhat emotionless, somewhat forgetful, very busy with its work, and terrifyingly ingenious in its field of expertise.

>>54347711So long as it's all informed and voluntary it's not too grim for the most part.

I can see the Mechanicus ones, expert in their fields as they are, occasionally having to have steps taken so that they don't start receiving "innovation" about their respective field.

Of course the transition from crumbly old bastard to servo-skull for the AdMech is probably a gradual transition rather than the deathbed conversion of the Administratum. Everything in a tech-adept gets replaced as they fall apart (depending on rank) until most of the biological requirements are non-existent and you can down grade the amount of hardware to a more manageable minimum. For instance you don't need a human sized heart if the only thing it's pumping blood to is a brain already less then 70% organic and a few support bits of meat. May as well swap it for a smaller and more practical one.

>>54295743It would have to be a trade rich planet. It's a hive world so that's obvious but more so than that. A hub of traders rather than just a den of customers.

Heavily involved with the Merchant Navy and maybe with an Imperial orbital dockyard. Also>>54315314>>54315442>>54314237Yes, very much this. This is brilliant but the power of the Sisterhood needs to be kept as a near omnipresent shadow behind the nobility rather than something in the foreground. Their names are never counted in the noblehouses as such and any children they produce for any noble house are legally the children of the lady of the with the Sister acting as merely a humble lowborn concubine and surrogate. And that's how it appears on paper, but all know that lowborn or not they are of the Throne.

>>54348117They are also under instructions to offer any assistance to the Lady of the house in caring for and raising of her children. Publically this is because they are all supposed to be one big happy family and in all fairness they tend to be. The other more practical reason is that the Sisterhood is all about spreading it's influence as wide as possible

Also of note, though far less advertised, is that over the centuries a number of noble houses have disappeared from Preatoria. The decadent and debauched, the irredeemably parasitic, the sadistically cruel and power abusing, the Fallen Houses who gave in to the whispers of other things born from mortal weakness and vices

The children, if they are deemed if not pure but redeemable, are quickly ushered away and taken somewhere safe

The Order of the Old Tree is indeed a non-militant order. Everyone knows this, the Sisters themselves might carry a laser pistol with them at all times and know how to use it but that doesn't make them militant, everything in how they are organized is completely wrong for the job. Also a few small lasers is in fact the extent of their armaments (beyond a bit of poison it is rumoured)

They do though have extensive contact with the Order of the Bloody Brier and they most definitely are a militant order a they most definitely are armed with something more than antique small lasers and most defiantly can erase a Noble House from the political landscape and the physical landscape at the same time

Of the children and others deemed more or less innocent? The Orders are always looking for new recruits. They won't be posted anywhere near Preatoria, that's for damn sure, but space is wide and the orders are always in high demand

>>54299684If there is a Wales world it would have to be a predominantly agri-world whose regiment tithe is known and feared for it's expertise with the long-las

It would be one of the neighbouring worlds of Preatoria and provide much of it's bulk food stuffs

>>54348257It would also be mildly irradiated maybe due not to some nuclear attack but solar activity. Perhaps a distant star went nova in some pre-imperial days and they were just far enough away not to get fried but just close enough to get a few extra blips on the Giger-Counter.

She has a Navigator father and a psyker mother. Unlike Ada the mother never knew she was psychic as it never went beyond latent psychic.

The psykery of Ephrael Stern, unlike Magnus, does not manifest in throwing lightning bolt around and she has never tried to summon or bind anything and would never want to learn how. Her abilities manifest in becoming a living aura of pain and torment and death to Chaotic deamonic entities and also unconscious but very substantial physical buffs.

>>54349143It's how Imperial rule works in aristocratic Survivor Civilizations. All too proud for the Administratum, each too high in their own right to elect a planetary representative or even a council, and ultimately too decayed, unwieldy, and ossified as an interplanetary government to be much help to the wider Imperium in its original state. They were offered the choice of reform at the hands of the Steward, or the out offered by his wife. Either way the Praetorian Aristocracy was going to be reordered by its new liege and lord, their only say in the matter was if it was to be a brief century or so of revolution that slew all but those that proved their worth, or many millennia of grooming and subversion.

They could take the route of His Imperial Majesty, and get whipped into shape for their own good, and come out something like the realm of Ultramar, or the Great Imperial Matron's solution, and be raised into model imperial citizenship.

>>54353902Then it wouldn't be a survivor civilization. If it were then the Imperium wouldn't interfere in it's internal workings unless something major happened, like Chaos being tolerated or not paying the Tithe.

Preatoria then is a hive world either founded in Imperial Times or was a semi derelict unworthy of SC status.

>>54356976I'm still not seeing what the huge creepy factor is. In Dune the Bene Gesserit weren't the "creepy" faction. The Navigators and the Tleilaxu were the creepy factions by a huge unholy what the ever living fuck were you snorting Herbert margin.

The Bene Gesserit were just a mostly self contained eugenics program trying to create Superman that sold it's services to the nobility for protection and funding. It's just that they were also extremely good at manipulating people and kind of had to as a defense mechanism considering the environment and the sort of people in it.

In this Nobledarkness the Order of the Old Tree are comparatively benign, though no less manipulative.

Whereas the Bene Gesserit' long term ultimate goal was to birth the ultimate human that would effortlessly rule over all humanity, with them as his oldest friends and advisors (obviously), the Order of the Old Tree just want people to act sensible.

Bene Gesserit dedicate their lives to getting power over everyone or at the least a means of controlling the power over everyone.

Order of the Old dedicate their lives to getting people to support the Imperium because the Imperium protects people.

People-- my post about the "different kind of creepy" was about the person I was replying to airing his personal, slighty-incestuous, underaged sexual kinks on a non-porn thread. (We've all got our kinks, but time and place!) I *liked* what the person who wrote up the Old Tree did!

I'm none too good at social cues either, but it was post >>54321840 where someone (you? It's hard not being able to track when the same poster is talking) seemed to be inserting HIS OWN personal fantasy at random.

Gah, I'm trying to figure out how to convey both "apologetic" and "general facepalm at chain of misunderstanding" and only coming up with stuff that sounds more confrontational...

So, er, please continue to flesh out Praetoria, I would like to see more?

>>54345384>>54347711>>54348117Reminder that for many servo-skulls the Imperium might just flash-clone brain tissue like they do for all cogitators rather than core out a living human being in the majority of cases. It's easier to grow a brain in a nutrient bath than get it out of a live organism, especially since you don't have to deal with old mental setups and subpar optimization, unless you're really pressed for time.

That is, of course, unless you're AdMech. For the AdMech the servo-skulls are as much as statement as an aide. A physical reminder to the tech-priests that you are ultimately expendable, save for the fact that you have a functioning brain, and in the event you prove unsatisfactory you are nothing more than spare parts.

>>54354574A good rule-of-thumb for a Survivor civilization is "could you see this civilization being the great unifier in the Great Crusade if circumstances were different". Ultramar and Inwit would have, as shown by in canon how it only took a few determined individuals to make them spacefarers. The same with the Hubworlders, if they weren't so inward-looking. Interex goes without saying.

Oscar's mindset was that these civilizations had just as much claim to being the heir of the Great and Bountiful Human Empire as Sol did, as opposed to its degenerate descendants, and if their situations were reversed this is the deal he would hope the leader of galactic humanity would be making to his world.

>>54358900I had a couple of ideas floating around. One was an event the Guardians of the Dragon refer to in hushed tones as "the Feeding of the Dragon". An Inquisitor stumbled upon enough cookie crumbs to figure out that the Void Dragon was under Mars. He infiltrated the inner workings of the Mechanicum and causes a ruckus, taking several members of the Guardians of the Dragon hostage. The Guardians tried to tell him he was wrong but he wouldn't listen, and rapidly escalated the situation to outright threats. As in:

"Maybe I won’t have to call down Exterminatus. Maybe I’ll just release the information of what you have hidden here on Mars and the Imperium will just call down Exterminatus by itself."

The Mechanicus were in a bind, they couldn't let the secret get out but an Inquisitor is someone you don't just disappear. Eventually they realized the Inquisitor was corrupted, not doing this with Inquisitorial backing (which makes sense given how quickly he escalated things to violence) and was a member of the Hydra.

The Inquisitor had become obsessed with the idea that the Void Dragon had some connection to the origin of the Hydra. The Void Dragon was the Necron god of both innovation and destruction. Beginning and end. Alpha and omega.

>>54360028Realizing the fallen Inquisitor was batshit insane, the Mechanicus decided the best course of action was to give the crazy person what they want, and showed them the Dragon. Upon seeing the prostrate dragon, the Inquisitor fell to their knees and pledged their submission to the Dragon, exhoriating their beliefs. The Dragon didn't react as expected.

"A twisted version of that faith, to be sure, but there are concordances. However, you have caused harm and distress to my other followers beyond acceptable levels of tolerance. That will not be permitted. You have 2.2104 seconds to live following the end of this statement. I hope you enjoy this time."

It is not said what happened after this moment, only that the event was so disturbing that the Guardians of the Dragon refused to enter the details of it in their logbook. Some might claim this as a victory, the secret of the Void Dragon remained hidden and the person who had died trying to discover them was a traitor, rather than one of the Imperium’s own. But the Mechanicus did not see it that way.

They saw it as a failure. Because they had to get the Void Dragon to solve their problems for them.

>>54358889I'm the one that added that, and only to tie into the way the involvement of Isha tends to skirt the line between good, healthy, and beneficial social programs and unsettling matriarchal fertility goddess, herself deeply traumatized and with lots of freaky shit in her past, getting a bit too involved in human culture.

Much like with the holy concubine Jubblowski, when Isha gets involved in your society the results are good, but unsettlingly Venusian, if you get my meaning. Even her marriage to the significantly younger and far more naive Oscar has similar connotations. Whatever mother Isha influences is made healthy and bountiful, but as she is also the matron queen of the Imperium, well behaved and well mannered, and obedient to mama. Essentially, no matter how much you dress her up in official glamour, she is a primeval fertility goddess, only ever made somewhat more stern and statelet by her new position.

The Ara Ara elements in the order of the Old Tree are kinda a joke about Victorians being very attached to their strict nanny's and the virtuous up bringing they received, kinda crossed with Isha's cult of mother worship and the legalistic Lex Imperialis outlook. They're indoctrination and upbringing under the imperial creed succeeds at making upstand Imperial gentlemen, but they also gain a liking for the methods, hard and soft, forwarded by the Isha leaning side of imperial thought.

>>54360102The other one involves the North-South Mars conflict of canon. In canon, the potential civil war within the Mechanicus was orchestrated by the so-called Prophet of Cogs, who when his plans were discovered sent out a control signal that mind-controlled a bunch of servitors and reanimated a shitload of old DAOT war machines as cyberghouls. It's possible that some of them were lobotomized Men of Iron that no one recognized given their DAOT status.

In this timeline the Prophet of Cogs unleashing hordes of DAOT robo-zombies was enough for the AdMech to declare that the shit had hit the fan. So the Guardians went to the Dragon. Several hours later a message was transmitted out in binary, essentially translating to "sit down and obey". Roughly eighty percent of the Propet of Cogs forces did just that. As in canon the Prophet of Cogs was chased from Mars, and some claim he haunts the Alpha Centauri system to this day. This event, where an imprisoned Dragon was able to tell a bunch of old war machines to shut up and do what he says, made the AdMech even leerier about doing big stuff on Holy Mars.

It's possible these two events were one and the same. The rogue Hydra Inquisitor backed the Prophet of Cogs to get access to the Dragon while everyone was distracted, and the mass casualties among the Dragon's favorite followers meant he wasn't in a good mood when his so-called apostle found him.

A Guardsman of the realm of Ultramar and member of the Ultramarine Commando Auxiliary force. Since the time of the Iron Cage the forces of Guilliman have trained specialized, lightly enhanced combat forces to support and assist Astartes at the chapter level. While the practice of attached units for Astartes chapters in the Galacta Militarum has become commonplace, Ultramar Blue Helms are known across the eastern half of the galaxy for their excelence and professionalism. The attached group of enhanced guard veterans is said to be able to match one Marine in full kit with only two of their own number, and do well supporting such fables.

The Blue Helm pictured caries a Hubworld produced Emerald-Lascarbine and a power sword.

>>54360028These details seem at odds to me>Eventually they realized the Inquisitor was corruptedThis presumably means by Chaos, which beggars the plausibility of infiltrating Holy Mars unbidden>not doing this with Inquisitorial backing (which makes sense given how quickly he escalated things to violence)The lack of inquisitorial backing makes such an infiltration even more dubious, and probably precludes calling an Exterminatus in the first place. On the other hand, makes sense if he's tainted by Chaos, but it would also probably mean the Inquisition would be on him too.>and was a member of the Hydra.That would probably make the Inquisition job just a cover, the Inquisition is the Galactic level FBI to the Alpha Legion's Galactic level CIA/blacksite operation. Working for the Alpha Legion would probably put him in a position to fuck with the Mechanicus and Void Dragon Guardians in an official capacity but nothing so overt. He'd probably be part of the Illuminate, seeing as he's a conspiratorial type with delusions of mastering god-machines, but that's more of a very secret social club within the upper Administratum, Mechanicus, Galactic Court, Inquisition, and rarely the Militarum or Navy.

Those are the Intrigues that lie just a tier below the charms of the Traveling Court and debates of the High Lords.

The Hydra is on their tier, with rumored members like the Servo-Minds of Magnus, Malcador, Guilliman, etc. Horus, Ferrus and Fulgrim in the immortal bodies they strived to make, the original Alpharius Omegon, Eldrad, Settra,Taldeer, Ahriman, Trayzn, reactivated Iron Minds, the Men of Gold back from their long voyage, Malys, Vect, undead bloodthirsty Sanguineous, The Hivemind itself, Malal just because, and really anything else the Illuminate might have guessed in the past ten thousand years. Nobody knows about the Hydra. If an actual agent of the Hydra shows up to fuck with the void dragon its because the decision has been made to break the chains.

>>54361930That was the idea. They would be a double-agent Inquisitor whose real loyalty was to something else. Possibly an Inquisitor who noticed the similarities between their bread crumbs and the meaning of the Alpha Legion's symbols and started to dig. Maybe not corrupted by Chaos, but wrapped up in their own (incorrect) unified conspiracy theory that "explains everything". Inquisitors who go crazy looking at the fine details of the universe aren't exactly unheard of, it's just in this universe there's normally enough inter-Inquisitor policing that they get shot.

The idea was that the Inquisitor was doing stuff off the radar, and no one knew where they went. Inquisitors have a lot of latitude and make plans of their own initiative quite frequently. It would be enough that flashing the ][ would be enough to get them on Holy Mars, but when they realized that they were (A) crazy and dangerous to both the AdMech and the Imperium at large and (B) unaccounted for, so it was possible to disappear them and no one would think to look at the AdMech. And if they did, the AdMech just goes "must have tried to go snooping out in the Wastelands without a guide to do some off-the-books archaeotech hunting. What a shame."

But yes, the high concept was "crazy person that the AdMech can't just kill forces Guardians to give them access to the dragon. Person gets his wish, but Dragon is pissed that his worshipers have been harmed in the process and crazy person does not have very nice day."

>>54315696It's also the reason why the Imperium would likely come crashing down if Erebus' "murder knife" plan ever came to fruition. Oscar is the one person who is capable of wielding that much power, and yet has such distaste for totalitarianism (and such an ingrained desire to avoid being in a position of authority) he rarely uses it unless absolutely necessary. And he's immortal, so this state of affairs keeps going on as long as he doesn't die.

Anyone else would likely end up making power grabs and go full Space Stalin. Sangy and a few others wouldn't, but they would be rare. That may be Erebus' philosophical point in the "murder knife" strategy. The argument could be made that the Imperium doesn't exist because men are good, but because Oscar is good, and all it takes is one bad day for the Imperium to lose that and show its true colors (i.e., lawless hellhole).

Of course this being Oscar he probably has contingency plans. Why wouldn't he, with 10K years to think of them?

>>54362262that all works, I just wanted to stress that if he's putting the Alpha and Omega legions' names themselves as major points in his conspiracy then the Hydra itself might be way his head.

To clarify what we've seemed to decide about the Imperial spy apparatus, The Alpha and Omega legions are the next level of fuckery up from the Inquisition and Astra Militarum, which includes the intrigues of Void Admirals and most Chapter Masters and such. These organizations all answer to the High lords. The top level of those organizations conspire as the Illuminate to eventually do something or other about Cthonia and the dear Cthonian, with much variety of aim.

The various Illuminati occasionally conflict with the Alpha Legion (ON the very-classified-record Imperial secret service/intelligence/black-opps) and Omega Legion (strictly OFF all records secret police/nominal-renegade/blacksite elements), but most of the time they work well together in mutual execution of their duties. The Alpha and Omega only answer to certain High Lords, and all to the Imperial Family, Oscar and Isha. They are much like the Custodes, but bound to the Emperor, not Oscar himself. The only real conflict between the Alpha & Omega and the Illuminate Order (and the Ordos they hold high station in) comes when some Illuminati gets some stupid idea and tries something dangerous or treasonous, or in more bureaucratic struggles between what the Illminate might like to do with Cthonia and what the Hydra is already doing there. The Hydra is to the Alpha, Omega, Favored Chapter Masters and Others, Custodes, and the Emperor and Empress' close courtiers what the Illuminate Order is to the great institutions of the Imperium. The Hydra is the influential circle that could be very well said to rule the galaxy in the Emperor's company, and very little is known as to its true membership even to the Illuminate.

>>54362408You need to look a the drafts and notes page, the main one is empty.>>54362641continuing, since I'm remembering old threads pretty well and would like there to be a good write up of this organization's structure.

The Illuminate Order is mostly Imperium, with strong representation from the Inquisition, who float the best crackpot long term plans, and the Administratum, who float the most insane ideas for technocratic reform, a small faction of Naval and Military officers that mostly partake to keep the other factions in check, an Eldar Farseer faction of similar size with similar goals, a handful of unaligned powerful galactic Statesman and Rogue Traders, and assorted blocs of Shola Psychana theorists. The Mechanicus also makes a significant faction in the Illuminate Order, and tends to have the most politically disruptive agendas in regard to Cthonia, Oscar, and Men of Gold in general. Broad goals of the Illuminati are the reclamation of Chthonia, understanding the fate of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, and understand the full power and fate of the Men of Gold. To these ends they use their personal influence and power to research and advance these projects within their respective organizations and in joint efforts.

The Hydra can be assumed to include the Emperor in its ranks, as when he was Steward, and likewise might include his venerable wife, and the old wizard Eldrad. Likewise the Illuminate Order assumes there is within this circle some agent of the Alpha, maybe another for the Omega, and a representative of the Custodes, at least one High Lord, and so on. There are signs of The Hydra during Earth's Unification, and in Terrawatt going back into Old Night. There are hints of The Hydra in parts of the broken Circlet, never before explored.

Lesser members of the Illuminate may not even be sure of the Omega Legion's existence, setting forward operating bases in The Eye and setting Fallen and Crone against each other.

>>54362919To those same Illuminati "the Hydra" is oft guessed to be a collective name for the machinations above them, foremost the Alpha Legion. Even the most learned and well connected of the Illuminate Order, even those blessed to the Emperor's own humoring fondness, have barely an inkling what The Hydra truly is.

It is known to have operated heavily on the Cthonian Circlet since the Great Hunt, apparently vacated the system during the reign of Emperor Vandire and only returned after the civil war. Since then various activity in the unmappable vastness of the broken ring has been attributed to "The Hydra" following the highest level of inquiry, and the few resources tracked into these depths are of incredible interest. Though rumors of Iron Minds being brought back to functionality and into order, Men of Gold returned from an extragalactic voyage bearing gifts and asking quarter, Methodology for the manufacture of true Godhead for the Emperor, and many more yet further fetched abound, others are more reasonable. The research of Man of Gold Physiology and production, possibly their reproduction, experiments on webway tunneling to once again tie the Dominion to its Capital, or even the resumption of Neutronium production to fully mend the Capital itself, even immortality research, are far likelier to be so, and are in much closer keeping with Oscar's known aims.

The Hydra is the big secret project of the Imperial Court, akin to the Dragon for the Mechanicus. The Guardians of the Dragon might have to smack down nosy Illuminati, most often from their own faction, but that's cause they're the parallel route to chasing the Hydra. The Illuminate Order is where all the powerful and informed, but not top tier, congregate to pick at the secrets they've found, and bother the Imperial Court as much as the High Mechanicus. They Hydra and the Guardian's of the Dragon both know the other has a secret, they might even peek, but they mostly look the other way.

>>54360429>>54363186My only objection is that the numbers make them better than the Sisters of Battle. In the thread where we argued about the Sisters we landed in a roughly 3 to 1 equivalence for SoBs to SMs, so the 2 to 1 ratio for guardsmen with a lasgun and no power armor is a bit of a stretch, even given slight augmentations and elite training. Narratively, it seems like they're essentially Ultramar's storm troopers/scions right?

Preatoria, oft described as the beating heart of Segmentum Tempestus, a glorious place whose spires and hive bastions soar over the half dead world, kept safe from storm and radiation and enemy assault behind the great walls and void shields. A world of traders and industry and the ever present drum beat of war that hungers and consumes the produce of half a sector and more and in turn supplies manufactured goods beyond measure and the produce of the hives and always offers protection as it's soldiery beyond numbers march in perfect formation and iron discipline to the Long War.

The world itself is a dreary and half dead place still scared from the days of Old Night with new scars of Orks and Chaos incursion in more recent times placed atop the old one before they could fade away. Few, hardy or foolish or both, venture outside the bounds of the Mega-cities into that cursed ground. Only within the walls can true civilization be found in all it's ugly grandeur.

When the Imperium, in those halcyon days of the Great Crusade, discover first discovered praetoria it was a wretched place. Once had been great edifices now ash blackened stubs, some still glowing with radiation, and the snowballing of nuclear winter and the emaciated and cancerous wretches grubbing through the ruins trying desperately to live one more day. A far cry from the diamond spires and throngingly busy and opulently decorated orbital tethers of later years. If any world owes thanks to the Imperium it is Preatoria.

>>54365482Preatoria under rule of the most glorious Imperium could never be considered a serious candidate for the lofty status of Survivor Civilization for although there were people alive when it was discovered they would not have survived for much longer, a pity considering that the world had survived the vast majority of the Old Night in a relatively functional state only to fall at the last hurdle less than 200 years before the Imperium discovered them. Though as the power blocs are forming in earnest by the last years of the 41st millennium the legal distinction between the two is not going to mean as much as it once did.

There seem to be, if we take games and books into this, too many Captains for companies.

But given the increased and increasing threat of the 'Nids it is likely that Ultramar and every other world and collection of worlds on the Eastern Fringe have started going Full Conscription, Full War Economy. If nobody is treating the Codex as Holy Writ and more of a How To Chapter guide then maybe, just maybe, the Ultramarines have also followed suit.

There are now additional Companies in the Ultramarines. Captain Titus is in change of one of them.

Also it could be that he is the first confirmed Blank Space Marine. He was a latent Blank until warp exposure triggered his gift/curse. There have been other suspected blanks before but nobodies ever been able to confirm it with a proper Inquisitorial study. They tried intentionally creating Blanks via breeding program for the purpose of making an alternative to the Grey Knights, of those disappointingly few that actually manifested the gift none were capable of accepting and surviving the alterations.

It is suspected that the Blank gene fucks up the transformation in some way. It is suspected that Titus is only functional because it manifested so much later in life. It is only suspected because they have a study group of 1.

In any case the Inquisitor Thrax was ordered to hand him back as Titus, being the captain, was kind of essential to the proper running of his company and nobody wanted to risk that snitching little bitch Leandros getting the promotion. They did reluctantly because HOLY FUCK A BLANK MARINE! would have been so useful to the Inquisition.

Also Mira and what was left of the 203rd Cadians get adopted by Ultramar because reasons.

>>54364505Yeah, Guardsman to Sister was 3 to 1, which is why the Sisters are often used to suppress insurgents, and Sisters to SM are 3 to 1. So by that logic, it takes about 9 to 10 Guardsmen on average to physically match a Space Marine.

Eldar are probably all over the place, since Eldar on the Path of the Warrior have different gene expressions due to their weird genetic structure if we go by canon compared to a Ranger or Guardian and skill is a much bigger factor.

>>54367421We already have Titus. Tribune Titus. Calgar got put in a coma when he tried to take on the Swarmlord and it attempted to beat him to death with its bare hands, and the entire first company was killed with him, leaving Titus as the highest ranked individual that could be in charge (explaining how he and Sicarius could both be in command of the 2nd Company). So Titus is in charge of the Ultramarines until/if Calgar wakes up.

Sicarius passed up the opportunity because for all TTS likes to make fun of his ambition, canon shows him more happy killing things as the chapter's champion, something he would not be able to do if he was a chapter master.

This all worked out well at first, Titus was held in high regard by everyone, but since then cracks have begun to form. The other captains have started to resent Titus butting into their affairs because he's technically "just a captain" like they are, and the Ultramarines are headed for a potential succession crisis. Just like ancient Rome.

>>54315696>>54316439I've only been following these threads since recently, so has there been any talk about Adeptus Arbites? If the Lex Imperialis has a cult-like status, then they, as its primary agents, would have a far more pronounced role in society. They are not simply lawmen to be feared and respected, they are the Great Judges of the Imperium, servants of the Law and Emperor, and the closest thing the Imperium would have to divine interpreters.

>>54369268The enforcement of the law isn't really the focus of the veneration though, its the body of law itself being held in veneration. The Arbites are something like galactic Interpol in that they deal with major, interjurisdictional crime, and they are also involved in the enforcement of certain laws that cover the whole Imperium, most prominently the protection of the galactic currency, but also dealing with other basic principles of the Imperium. They're an institution that is meant to police from the planetary to sector level, and they are afforded fitting dignity and respect, but likewise its rare for an Arbite to be walking the beat or roughing up thugs, they're dealing with vampire conspiracies and possibly chaos corrupted privateer armadas. An Arbite with a beat as small as a single hive is there in residence to exert the glory of righteous Imperial justice for the people, and hence you get them in chronically corrupt places like Necromunda, and usually being assigned to a single planet is a small range. They are just below Inquisitors when it comes to commandeering local resources and law-enforcement, and though they can't make the same requests of the Administratum, Navy, or Militarum they might be thought of as the civic equivalent of the Inquisition.

>>54373259In this AU, Guilliman suggested chapter size of 1,500 - 2,000, but this was never a hard rule. Instead, it's more of a guideline and best practice that Guilliman derived from his centuries of experience that best balances sufficient firepower with the strategic and tactical flexibility of a smaller unit size. (You can read up on the details of how the Legion became impractical in the "Breaking of the Legions" blurb in 1d4chan)

So it could very well be that the Ultramarines and other chapters are increasing recruitment because of all the threats in M41.999. After all the Space Wolves and Black Templars have recruited as they see fit for millennia.

>>54368481It was also mentioned in a previous thread that the Sisters are now less concerned with Flamer weapons.

Now they prefer Melta weapons because their most dangerous game typically wear power armour.

Also they fight dirty and specialize in using every underhanded trick and terrain advantage they possibly can. A typical sister's idea of a good Fallen hunt is getting one of the fuckers to stand on a cluster of land mines.

>>54371719I think they would have the ability to simply conscript law enforcement into their service on whatever world they are on. That is excluding secret police like the Orders Securitas or anything from the Inquisition. On lawless planets, it would be fine if they can build up their own personal law enforcers to use or hand them over to the local government.

The mind of the Arbites should be that of a prosecutor, judge, and executioner. Laws concerning all of the Imperium should be able to be interpreted based on the original intention of the writer (or close to it as possible). Evidence concerning a case should be closely examined before passing judgment. Ruthlessly should they act in carrying out a penalty in anything from whippings to summary executions after an enforcer raid. In order to prevent opportunistic guilty verdicts to improve their records, there are only two ranks in the Arbites. Everybody starts off as Junior Arbite to train under an Arbiter then graduate into becoming Arbitrator who answers directly to the Administrum. Those who have given false guilty or not guilty verdicts are subjected to punishment by other Arbites or Inquisitors with whatever they see fit.

>>54375317Absolutely, no one in their right mind should want to get close to a Fallen. The best way to stop one is prevent him from falling in the first place. The second best way is from a bunker miles away with saturation artillery fire.

I think it was mentioned that for the regular armed forces in the Imperium, seeing Sisters with meltas and worried looks on their face is code for "let's get the hell out of here, shit is about to go down."

>>54376274Yeah, the fact that the Arbites are judges as well tends to be overlooked.

I imagine them being a sort of Constitutional/Supreme Court for the planets they're stationed on. When legal parties are unhappy with the rulings of native courts, they can bring their case directly before the representative of the Imperium, who judges it both in accordance with local laws and the wider Imperial principles. This requires an in-depth knowledge of local and Imperial laws and the way in which they interact, and tends to be very rare as the Arbites don't like undermining the local judiciaries much.

>>54380310I imagine this to be the primary purpose of the Administratum really. It's part of the power balance of the Imperium. The Administratum has no standing forces of their own (The guard and navy are technically a part, but have separate command chains) but they control the treasury and handle the vast majority of resources that pool through the Imperium. The other organizations have some funding of their own, but if they really want some new bling they have to go cap in hand to the Administratum.

I'd say that most can become fathers, but most don't. Exceptions for Salamanders and Space Wolves who both most definitely can and are in fact encouraged to find a wife and start a family as a method of keeping grounded in society.

For at lest and appreciable proportion of Rome's history Legionares were not allowed to get married. Their loyalty must always be to the state above all and the only brides available would be the natives of where they are stationed and that's a very good way to generate a conflict of interest, especially if the legion gets ordered to pacify the locals. This absolutely did not stop them from unofficially taking wives and marrying off the books because fuck the quill pushing bureaucrats.

Depending on how Roman Ultramar is Legionaries of the Ultramarines may in fact be forbidden from taking wives by some ancient law possibly set down for very sensible reasons by Guilliman's grandson whilst he was reforming Ultramar. It could also be that later Chaplains and Lawmen of the state have deemed the law to have outlived it's usefulness and no longer enforce it. Ultramar has never rebelled and never will so there is no real likelihood of serious loyalty choosing between Ultramar and Imperium and Ultramar itself is big enough to call in off-world support to deal with any rebellion inside it's borders without making people choose between state and family whilst still keeping it relatively in-house.

>>54383022>>54370403Also in the case of Titus and Miria the Astartes are not totally distinct from the rank and file and general hierarchy of the Imperial Army. An unprofessional relationship between the two, despite being from wildly different departments, would have been massively against regulations.

Taldeer and LIVII only got away with it because Assassins are, like psykers, not part of the chain of command because, like psykers, nobody would ever want to take responsibility for their antics.

Which is not to say that it has to be the same in Ultramar. As a Survivor Civilization Ultramar can play by almost any rules it wants as strictly as it decides.

Titus and Miria would also run into the problem that it's entirely possible that both of them are extremely inexperienced and the whole notion of romantic love is confusing and mildly terrifying to both of them considering that their lives have been almost nothing but war eternal. Titus because he's a space marine who has lived and breathed war for centuries to the point where the finer things in life are alien to him and Miria because she's a Cadian and that's just life for Cadians.

It would be awkward to say the least. It would also be sickeningly innocent.

>>54374300This could be the reason that the cracks are really showing in the year 999M41.

Regent/Acting CM Titus gathered the captains together and told them, not discussed it because this isn't a fucking democracy, that he was going to go to the Ultramar Senate with a proposition. Every world of sufficient resources and population needs to raise and support a Chapter sized branch of the Ultramarines alongside the increased military investments and conscription taking place in preparation for the real arrival of the Great Devourer.

This is so far outside the codex that it's not even funny. Like holy shit nigga what the fuck are you doin'? This could be seen as Legion rebuilding.

But the other Captains have not seen the shit that he has seen. As Regent he gets all of Calgar's post. He has seen the Inquisitorial reports, reports that were very highly classified and so can not share. But he shouldn't need to share it if everyone under his command does what they are fucking told. Presumably Calgar saw some of the earlier reports but stuck to regulations and the letter of the law, for all his brilliance Calgar was a stickler for the rules. Or perhaps he was too convinced it would cause a schism, like it is almost doing now.

The other captains ask him under what authority a mere captain is restructuring the ancient chapter. "My own. I need no other authority" would be his reply but that is a very shaky statement considering that until Calgar either manages to die or wakes up he is supposed to be just keeping things ticking over and keeping the seat warm.

>>54386820>>54388107But remember, rebuilding the Legions isn't prohibited in this AU because there was no HH, the legion structure just became obsolete due to the shifting strategic demands of the Imperium. In fact each First Founding chapter has the right to call for a Reformation of the Legion where they summon all their successors to fight under their banner in times of crisis (again, details can be found on 1d4chan).

So if Titus did indeed request a massive surge in SM recruitment, the opposition Chapter Masters could be arguing against it from a humanitarian perspective instead of just being dogmatic conservatives, since such massive military spending would come at the expense of the welfare of the citizens of Ultramar. In the immortal words of Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

>>54388877On the one hand yes they can call the chapters together but this is not that. There has been no calling, he's wanting to build a new Legion.

The opposition might claim humanitarian reasons and the ones in the Senate would actually mean it but they also know of the Locusts at the border. There is temporary hardship but there is also extinction as an alternative.

The opposition in the chapter is mostly political manoeuvring, old men not liking change and dogmatic adherence to tradition.

But ultimately he only needs a one vote majority in the Ultramar Senate as minimum to get shit rolling.

>>54388107Honestly it sounds like something the Emperor would offer as unofficial counsel to Titus. If anyone knows how to economically run several legions of Astartes as well as massive research and development efforts for the same with only the resources of a single world, it's Oscar. There are also several other pseudo-legions that never really disbanded that Oscar is fine with because they all found strategic niches millennia ago. Raising up more space marines in general is well within the realm of possibility for new Imperial programs in the Dark Millennium, and the only hangup I really see on Oscar's part for this plan is that he would attach the new chapters to the general Astra Militarum instead of Ultramar's own more localized forces. Honestly though letting Titus try it out against the tyranids (and Ultramar's bureaucratic inertia) works as a good test case for implementing similar plans to combat other problems around the Imperium. If nearly every world is fielding its own Astartes as well as Guard things will look a lot brighter going forward.

>>54362377>>54362408>>54362919Did any of the 1d4 ever get the revamp that was coming for it? Did anyone else end up helping editfag (god rest his soul) or did everyone just keep dumping stuff into the dedicated pages just like every other idea that comes out of this board. Could we not borrow a few wikifags from Asunder or Hektor? Are they even still around?

>>54385736>>54384572Titus I can imagine being the more inexperienced of the two and indeed extremely awkward when not in a situation that is not concerned with either the running of the chapter or active war. If he was taken for military training at age 12, picked out for additional training with the later option of becoming an astartes novice age 14 and augmentation in the earliest age that this AU allows which is the age of consent on whatever planet he is raised, lets say 17, then he could very well have missed out on an entire aspect of basic human emotional development. Not to put it too bluntly but Titus could very well be a pure as the driven snow virgin.

Not that this would bother him after the first 50 years of being a living weapon. Certainly after a few centuries notions of sex and intimacy would probably not even register.

Then along comes Miria.

Miria on the other hand is born and bred Cadian descended from the tribal first Cadians as discovered by the Word Bearers back in the Great Crusade. Saying that because her life has been nothing but war and therefore no time for the softer aspects of living is kind of missing the point of Cadians. They have always been nothing but war for over, 10,000 years nothing but war. They've found time in that to makes lives for themselves and pair off and have children, even if there are a shit load of orphans.

She would be the more aggressive and assertive in the relationship for no other reason than she would have to be. And it would certainly be a long time before any relationship could reach the stage of "more than friends" for the reason that she won't be sure if he feels anything, is even capable of feeling anything, for her and won't risk making a fool of herself before a superior officer. There would just be lots of awkward and bashfulness and eventually followed by hand holding and watching the stars together and such things.

After the 'claridryl' incidents, the Adeptus Biologicus has taken an absolute hard line stance requiring centralized approval on all pharmaceuticals in the Imperium, even if it leads to literal centuries of development hell.

>>54360169It makes you wonder exactly how the marriage between Oscar and Isha would have been to start with.

Emperor is all about denying warp entities as gods and gets really annoyed if people try to worship him and believes that people should rule people.

Isha is a warp entity deified by all Imperial eldar with her own dedicated priesthood and revered as the All-Mother now heiress to the majority of an entire pantheon as a very definite queen of her people.

They would have consummated the marriage as legally obligated to but they would not have loved each other at first.

>>54390497This. Oscar would be all for it, on the condition that the new chapters be allowed to go their own way like every other Ultramarine successor before. It's a good plan against the tyranids, the only issue would be if the chapters have more loyalty to Ultramar than the Imperium.

>>54394997It was called the "500 worlds of Ultramar during the HH, and unlike the HH Ultramar didn't get shit on specifically because Lorgar didn't fall and get a hate-on for Guilliman. Calth for one is not a wasteland.

To be honest if Ultramar has 500 worlds, one space marine chapter protecting all of them is probably low, even if the High Lords are worried about insurrection.

>>54402886We can assume that it lost a percentage of those worlds in the WoTB, though not as many as in Vanilla given that The Beast wasn't after Ultramar. So lets say it's down to ~400

Also not all of those worlds would be capable of supporting a chapter and so would have to share with their next neighbor of real size. There would not be 400 chapters.

Lets say that a quarter of those worlds are sufficiently advanced enough to build up, train and support a whole chapter to integrate into it's own IG/PDF units and the lesser satellite worlds just kind of tag along with them and offer what support they can.

That's still 100 chapters. In Vanilla that's a new 100,000 marines. Here that's between 150,000 and 200,000 marines.

Now has already been mentioned that's not a gift from god made out of nothing. Each chapter, each marine, is an investment and will be a cost that could have gone to more conventional military spending. In relative pace time it could have gone to civilian spending but it's not a war Ultramar and the Imperium started so that decision was made for them.

It is, in effect, an experiment that could backfire horrifically and get everyone in Ultramar killed and eaten should it turn out that a large group of regular soldiers and equipment is better to the task than a relative few marines. But on the other hand Acting CM Titus couldn't be taking the gamble if the strategic forecasts were anything other than "we all certainly gonna die if we keep don the known path".

It could also be that the descendant chapters of the Ultramarines would stop answering the call to reform the Legion in times of emergency on the principle that one man commanding what is essentially 2 Legions is one big step too far. The old Ultars maybe elect the Genesis Chapter Master (or whoever) as their new Legion Commander for times of emergencies.

This might not be a bad swap for the Ultramarines as the New Ultras will have their HQs within easy communications distance.

In Vanilla it was mostly confined to Armless Abby using it to trick a Tzneetchian deamon out of it's name and an Ork Warboss killing his past self for a copy of his favorite shoota.

In this AU so far was have had the possibility that the Ordo Chronos tried it and drew the attention of the Hounds of Tindalos (or equivalent) and got et bar one survivor who turned up in Prince Yriel's cargo hold.

>>54405988What is certain in this AU is that with time-travel, people can only be used to go into the future. This pretty much eliminates the possibilities of paradoxes. Ordo Chronos, I think exist in this AU but have also disappeared as well thanks to them fucking up with the Warp.

>>54406403Paradoxes could also be eliminated if it is considered that the future never happens from the point forward that the traveler arrives in the past.

The entity arriving is essentially appearing out of nowhere (because everything of where he came from is erased for a given value of erased) and anything he knows is not set in concrete.

Like Sam Vimes in Nightwatch.

Is it still dangerous as all fuck and increadibly difficult to pull off? Holy shit yes. And there are worse things than Tindalos Hounds that the incautious could attract that attack them at a point in their past before they violate shit.

Hinted at that the last Ordo Chronos Inquisitor was in an inter-dimensional place and so was inaccessible to the other things, though he does now appear mad and refuses to stand still lest he accidentally intersect a point in both space and time simultaneously where they can "see" him.

>>54409151They would maybe be called Primaris but they would not be Marines+.

They would be regular marines with good PR and gear made by the Glorious Ultramar Republic. All that bullshit pictures of them being a head taller than other astartes is artistic license to get volunteers.

>>54409151Better Space Marines but not as good as Terminators! I always saw Primaris Marines to be the natural evolution of the tactical Space Marines, but the way GW introduced them into the lore was a complete clusterfuck of mental gymnastics.

They haven't been mentioned yet, I'm guessing that they are Ultramars answer to the Hubworlder Terminator design.

Also, just putting it out there, Repentant Engines; The Sororitas are not full of idiots anymore. The REs are operated by Battle Sisters (not necessarily the same as Securitas sisters) in full power armour rather than naked chicks in bondage gear.

Ultramar and it's Primaris Marines have no Terminators but Centurion gear is their invention.

A invention dictates in this AU a small but powerful sub-sect of Mars (Olympus Mons Brotherhood) are slightly worried. But Ultramar is half a galaxy away from Mars so it's "probably" nothing. For a given value of nothing.

>>54410489>Also, just putting it out there, Repentant Engines; The Sororitas are not full of idiots anymore. The REs are operated by Battle Sisters (not necessarily the same as Securitas sisters) in full power armour rather than naked chicks in bondage gear.I don't particularly see the point of them in this AU. If the sisters need a walker just slap armor on the cockpit and make a battlesuit. Without the whole religious penance angle the Penitent Engine is just a slightly less stupid looking Dreadknight.

While we're there, is the Imperium making use of Tau style battle suits at all?

>>54412029>, is the Imperium making use of Tau style battle suits at all?they have knights and the associated scions leftover from the age of strife in various survivor civilizations, but they are aristocratic and uncooperative, and closely tied to the Mechanicus. A really diplomatic macharian general might be able to use Knights effectively, but otherwise they are layabout glass cannons that serve as heavies for PDFs because they'lll rarely fight outside of their dutchies.

>>54413572I'd expect the Knights to engage beyond whatever planet they happen to be based on. My impression of them in canon is that they're very honor-driven and aggressive, and I would hardly expect them to be less so in this AU.

>>54415340Survivor civilization are interplanetary, almost by definition, so knights would range over multiple planets and stars, but they're still tied to the "land" of their local region, and can't be counted on beyond it unless their liege-lord, likely a signatory descendant of said civilizarion's union with the Imperium, summons them and sends them forth. Knights are dispersed over all the galaxy once held by man, but they're an asset held by survivor civs, and as such they are independent of the Imperial army and command structure, because they're all remnants of old night. They certainly aren't disloyal, but they respond to local lords, not the Astra Militarum

>>54409151Pls no, Primaris are such a half-assed bit of lore that only exist because GW was afraid to squat old marines and have actual true scale marines.

>>54413572>>54415340>>54415571A super old idea that was thrown out in like the 2nd or 3rd thread is that there are some Knight houses that are essentially crusader orders that protect pilgrims as they journey to holy sites around the galaxy. So DEUS VULT with giant robots.

>>54402886>>54403214It's also been mentioned that there are power blocs forming in the Imperium that will, assuming survival, see more or less nearly all of the Imperium made up of non-contiguous Ultramars. Fenris and it's colonies being an example.

If that happens they will almost certainly take the Space Marines with them as the Space Mariens are way more closely incorporated into the normal military than in Vanilla. With no brakes imposed on them by outside forces what Titus is doing could very well be just the first.

There haven really been "Foundings" in this AU beyond the original founding when the Expeditionary Forces of the Great Crusade set out. This will in fact be the 2nd Founding.

>>54413572>macharian generalThis is just a random thought that popped out of nowhere, but given who Isha's avatar and the Emperor's physical wife is in this setting, the name Macharius can take on a whole new meaning.

>>54426315Pastoral Worlds are another big one. Originally extra-planetary colonies set up by the Khanate because Old Earth was getting too crowded. Mostly raise livestock for the Imperium, from sheep to horses to grox. Like Texas meets Mongolia. See themselves as a culturally unified bloc and the old Khanate as a quasi-mythical lost homeland of cultural reverence.

>>54426315Various conglomerated Hive worlds, often unified under Rogue Trader or Voidborn interstellar trade compacts, which leads to merchant princes with expensive Macharian style armies full of whatever outlandish troops they can gather.

Also the Interex, they're a bigger and older Survivor/Xeno civ than the Tau or Tarellians, and they are influential in Imperial regional politics to a corresponding degree. They also Have the Sagittar to be the heavy hitters attached to their armies, and make less use of astartes because of it.

For the Fenrisian colonies I'm going to put forth the idea that there is a small but persistent branch of neo-Exodites that keep tagging along, much to the annoyance of the Fenrisians.

Most eldar don't like Fenrisian worlds. Most other humans don't either. These are not exodite extremists living there for reasons of self flagellation despite what the gutter media claim.

They are doing it because something about the frontier calls out to them deep in the marrow. The chill in the air and the hunt for big game in the dark seas, the endless tundra and the cold forests. It gets their blood pumping and lights a fire in their hearts.

Also they like annoying the Fenrisians.

For all that it's the casual banter of friends more than the intense rivalry of competing tribes. To many who study history it's the echo of Russ and the wild eldar that he befriended.

>>54438787>>54439430Given that the Raven Guard are Imperium Black Ops/Tryzan Counter-Trollz it's less than likely that they would be deployed out in the open like they were in Dawn of War.

Blood Ravens could be replaced by a contingent of Word Bearers lead by Eliphas the Apostle but himself under the command of Lord General Castor. Unlike the forces of Chaos there would be no rivalry between the two. Eliphas is content to spread the Good News of the Katholians and lead the heavy elites of the Imperial Army and Castor is old and wise enough to listen to his advice and then make judgments.

The Chaos forces would have Fallen elements but Fallen are quite rare so they would be an elite rather than the backbone of the Chaos forces.

The leaders of the Chaos would be a Fallen Lord of some sort and a Chaos Eldar with whom he buts heads. Fallen in charge of the Marine elites and human cannon fodder and the Chaos Eldar aristocrat in charge of the freaks show extravaganza that is the averge Chaos Eldar force.

So is it just Ultramar that is going FULL WAR or is there a trend of this Imperium wide with more stable worlds being bled a little for the ones in danger like should have been happing for Gondor in LotR?

Because if this is a general trend, combined with the shifting structure of society, then Oscar could have been building up to a galactic 2nd Founding and Titus in ignorance of this has beaten him to it.

If so then Oscar could be just offering advice, sitting back to see the results to let someone else iron out the kinks and take the blame for once before implementing it on a bigger scale.

If the 400 worlds of Ultramar are going to result in 150,000 - 200,000 marines and billions more guardsmen then the ~1,000,000 worlds will result in 375,000,000 - 500,000,000 marines (I'm probably wrong I can't maths for shit).

A similar increase in guardsmen I can't even know where to estimate.

Which means that the wars will have to be timed perfectly as the Imperial economy and infrastructure would be burning itself out if all the resources are sent to military spending and nothing else for too long.

It would have to be timed so that those new soldiers and those new chapters are reaching fruition just as the Tyranids are at their hottest, Chaos/orks is at it's coherent and the necros are at their most active.

Even then it could take a very long time to recover from in a very deep post-war depression caused by everything breaking down from lack of looking after if not active damage.

If we push the dates for preparation back then 999M41 is when the shit all comes together and is the date the Imperium gets truly tested.

Given the rarity of named Gretchin in Vanilla I think we need to make a name up. I'm going to suggest Snikrat as it's a name full of kunnin. Unless someone has another suggestion or knows of a named one we can borrow.

If he had been eaten then he would no longer be a Brain Boyz so he must be around somewhere.

The night is dark and full of horror, but the dawn is coming - and it will be glorious. All we must do is survive.

-Srg. Marcus Albus, Mustavaar 3rd Rifles Regiment, 845.M40

If humanity (and friends) can survive this last bout of kicking then the boot will very much be on the other foot. The Impossible Child is imminent, the Void Dragon knows they will free it soon as the probability ration grinds closer to 1:1, Ynnead stirs in the dreaming death, Khine is now waiting rather than sleeping, Ceggers is holding rather more cards now than anyone remember dealing him, children are singing songs about an old warrior king waking up to pull his sword from a Rock and a hundred other portents.

All the Imperium has to do is survive this one last savage beating. If it can do that it will be ready to really dish out the righteous retribution.

>>54452303They have a lower attrition rate, and burnouts are kept around and put in with non-Astartes special forces. In total Astartes are much more integrated to the Imperial army, acting as a bunch of particularly storied space marine corps, usually not esoteric knightly orders.

I was looking over the stuff we have on the Adeptus Biologis, specifically the distinction between the 'emergentist' and 'utilitarian' factions. And I was reminded of a book review I read, of 'Seeing Like a State,' about how centralized governments suppress and eliminate things like local dialects, local forms of land ownership, etc. in order to make control and taxation easier, and in the process making things less efficient. A lot of the examples given were agricultural/biological; for example, a forest being managed by local peasantry being clearcut and replaced with 'scientific', 'rational' methods of a single type of (highly productive) tree planted in rectangular grids. (Productivity plummeted due to the destruction of the ecosystem that maintained soil quality, and everyone involved was promoted anyway.)

This conflict, centralization vs. decentralization, reminded me of Horus' arguments with the Emperor in this AU, and it occurred to me that that that argument, that conflict, almost certainly did not end just because Horus died, but continued within and between various Imperial institutions. Within the Biologis, the 'emergentists' are decentralist while the 'utilitarians' are centralist; the Biologis as a whole is more decentralist than the Martian Mechanicus. Local nobility conflict with the Administratum; Rogue Traders are naturally way the fuck out on the decentralist side. As an organization, the Inquisition is likely highly centralist- very supportive of their right to meddle in local affairs- even though its internal organization is cellular and diffuse. So, what other fault lines of this type can be identified in Imperial society?

>>54457392I don't think the Inquisition would care. They don't have a mandate to administrate so they have no interest in centralizing anything, so long as the locals bend over backwards while they're in town (Which the locals are generally willing to do, because it's the fucking Inquisition).

Certainly the Arbites, Guard and Navy would be the great agents of centralization. Arbites because they're super space FBI and want to have a centralized, coordinated effort of rooting out criminals across the galaxy and it would make their job so much easier if every planet just obeyed the same basic laws.

The Guard and Navy are obviously funded through the Administratum and would constantly strive to standardize military equipment, training and tactics across the galaxy to simplify their logistics chains. The Navy is somewhat successful at this, because a ship is a ship and what works in one segmentum works in the next, but the Guard remains a patchwork of different groups, ideas, approaches, strengths and necessities, to the relief of the Guard's strategists but the eternal dismay of the Munitorum's bean counters.

The Space Marines in their chapter form would be super decentralized, as opposed to the Sororitas, which would all follow a central hierarchy.

I think certainly the most interesting fault lines would lay between the Craftworlds and Terra.

>>54466549They don't seem to have been at all expansionist during the age of strife, so I'd say their territory is pretty compact but very heavily developed. Mines on every asteroid and bunkers under every mountain.

>>54468193They have a lot of worlds in infrastructure heavy clusters near the galactic core, hence the 'Hub' in hubworld. In terms of dispersal, they're spread over a handful of sectors, one or two are predominantly Hubworld, and in that area there is less Mechanicus presence. Likewise, the Hubworlders' influence pervades the area, aa do their technical sensibilities.

>>54470319I'd say significantly bigger. I get the impression that Ultramar is much more closely integrated into the overall Imperial apparatus than the Hubworlds are, which implies that the Hubworlds have a stronger base than Ultramar does in order to maintain their military/economic/administrative freedom. I'd say 1000-2000 worlds?

>>54417044>>54417770I'd say it depends. A lot of Knight worlds are feudal worlds who get mecha from the Adeptus Mechanicus in return for providing foodstuffs. So they would not be spacefaring, and therefore not Survivor civs.

>>54406403Where did we say this? There are examples in canon of forces arriving before they set out, like that one ork who arrived before he left and killed his time-duplicate so he could have two of his favorite gun, or that ship stuck in the distress beacon loop.

>>54472479Maybe bigger, but fewer habitable worlds because the galactic radiation sterilizes everything. So lots of rocks to mine and settlements end up looking like Mars bases until terraforming kicks in, but they don't have 500 habitable worlds like Ultramar did at the time of the Great Crusade.

>>54348379The human WAAAGH! effect might be a good one. Stern may be a powerful psyker, but her abilities developed along the lines of becoming more powerful the more powerful people believe she is. She believes this is how her powers work and therefore it is so. This means she can reach high levels of output, but her abilities are far more specialized than Magnus or the APEX twins and she doesn't have the flexibility. Like Billy the Werewolf from the Dresden Files, can't do a lot of spells, but can do one really, really well.

>>54475649It could have been that the Hubworlders were driven back to their last few dozen Colony worlds when the Imperium came in like Big Damn Heroes. With Imperial backing they very quickly broke the backs of the orkish petty empires that had sprung up using their stolen shit.

During the Great Crusade was their 2nd Golden Age, they had ~1,500 inhabited worlds around the galactic hub, probably more than they started out with at the start of the AoS, and showed no signs of stopping.

Then WoTB and a lot of old and now experienced orks were looking to settle scores with the stumpiz. The Hub-Wars were a major side show in the WoTB, though it was almost entirely an Ork grudge match with mercifully little Chaos. If the orks had taken the Hubworlds intact they would've had manufacturing capabilities off the charts and drowned the Imperium in the maddest of Big Mek toys.

Hubworlders nearly extinct, start relying on increasing numbers of robots further distancing themselves from Mars. Never really recover, as of 999M41 they have maybe ~700 much more sparsely populated worlds.

Pretty big, and given the robotic infantry pretty strong, probably the biggest of the Survivor Civs. Due to the nature of their longevity treatments they don't recover numbers as quickly as baseline humans.

>>54477099I like the Orks versus Dorfs idea for the WotB. Gives more dimensions to the war.

>>54482265We've already discussed Ultramar, the Interex, Necromunda, Hubworld League, and a few other Survivor civilizations in some detail. Granted there are others, like Inwit, that have almost nothing written about them.